apple trees

Editing Advice from the Orchard – Part 3 – Removing that Fire Blight

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This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. 
John 15:8 NIV

Finally, we come to the last and most difficult things to prune and those are the diseased branches. In apple trees these are branches infected with a bacteria called fire blight, and every old tree has a little. Though there is no known cure, a careful pruning can extend the life of a tree for years. If the sucker growth is the most obnoxious, and the deadwood most obvious, diseased branches as well as diseased writing, is the most obtuse to deal with. You see, sucker growth will never bear fruit and deadwood cannot bear fruit, but blighted limbs may still produce a few withered looking apples. In our writing, disease is not about the double negatives, misspelled words or run on sentences, it has to do with the why’s of our craft and the motives behind our manuscripts.

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If we are just churning out slick stories that appeal to the lowest desires of readers, there may be a bit of fire light creeping in. When we start finger pointing at the faults of others or stirring people to angry debate instead of compassionate service, it is time to ask God to heal our hearts. Eventually a blighted heart will catch up with us, and if left unchecked, will destroy the very purpose for which God called us to write. The secret is that just as trimming in the orchard is done in the Winter, God will choose the Wintertime in our life to root out a diseased direction. And in the editing of our writing, we will work best once the heat of inspiration has worn off and we can come to our pages, with passionless eyes, sharp pencils, and a determination to clear out everything that hampers a great harvest. Then we need to pray that the words we put on the pages of our life as well as our manuscripts will inspire readers to trust in God’s promises, grow in His grace and be filled with the hope that comes only from Him!

Editing Advice from the Orchard – part 2 – Cut Out That Deadwood!

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I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. John 15:1-2 NKJV

Pruning is essential to our writing as well as our lives. Jesus tells us that the master pruner is our Father in Heaven and His pruning as well as our editing is a step-by-step process. In part one we talked about clearing out the sucker growth of overblown verbiage. Today, we come to our next group of compositional ne’er-do-wells called: dead branches. Since pruning in the orchard is done in Winter, first-time trimmers logically ask, “How can you tell which branches are dead, when there aren’t any leaves?” Finding out which are living requires getting close enough to take hold of them. Grabbing on to a live branch you will discover that it is flexible, while dead twigs snap off at the touch of our fingers. In the same way our dead branches in writing as well as our lives, are rigid and dry. When people get close enough to touch them, these dead phrases and dried up ideas make no living connections to our readers. They are like low-calorie deserts, that look scrumptious in the commercials, but artificial sweeteners in snack cakes and as well as sentences leave a bitter aftertaste, and no one will want to go back for a second helping!

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In the orchard, deadwood removal looks brutal when the ground is littered with piles of branches. But cutting those limbs out is vital to the health of the trees. If they remain, they will crowd out the good branches and invite insects and disease to infect the trees. But once they are gone, there will be more space for the healthy branches, and even the tiniest healthy bud has a great advantage over the largest dead limb: it is still alive! Some dead limbs in our lives as well as our manuscripts are so large that a chain saw must be used to cut them out. If the trees in the orchard could talk, I am sure that they would complain loudly while I was removing their sucker growth and deadwood. But in April, the trees that have been pruned will fill with leaves, in May they will be covered with pink blossoms and if you come back in the Fall, you will find them heavy with delicious fruit!

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Winter Work in the Orchard

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Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 2 Timothy 4:2

When the average person hears the word apple, they picture a bin overflowing with ripened fruit at the farmer’s market, but for me, having pruned, sprayed, and harvested apple trees for more than a few years, it brings back memories of Wintertime in the orchards. I remember again that it takes four seasons to grow a single apple. In today’s verse, Paul tells us to be ready to do God’s work “Out of season”.  We need to live and love and serve, not only when the sun is warm and things are sweet, but also when the snow drifts stand around us and our sap is hidden deep underground. In an orchard there is always something to be done, and Winter is actually even busier than Fall. Trees that are left to themselves in the off season, produce smaller, more diseased and fewer apples each year. Winter is the time to cut out fire blighted branches, before they spread their deadly bacteria to the rest of the tree. Then, we must cut out the tall sucker growth that saps energy from the hard-working fruit wood. Last, and perhaps saddest of all, we have to saw off once fruitful limbs that have succumbed to age, disease or damage done by storms. In the same way that Paul tells Timothy about his work with the church, this activity is not just something to keep us busy in the off season. It must sometimes be performed regularly and in the worst possible working conditions. Even on days when temperatures barely creep above 0˚ Fahrenheit, we reprove uncontrolled selfish growth, rebuke the diseased limbs and exhort and encourage faithful fruitful branches. And on the day we finish an orchard, there is no sight more beautiful, than looking out over orderly stands of well-trimmed trees and seeing with eyes of faith the harvest to come.  Yet, even as we walk away with relieved smiles, we know that there will always be a next Winter when someone must patiently return. We remember that without our, “Out of season” work the harvest will never make it to market.

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